During the first 17 hours, Dr. Scarpati said, Pompeii was blanketed with pumice lapilli from the column, which fluctuated like a giant fountain through 12 distinct pulses. At 2 p.m., the volcano began to spew pumice mixed with gas. Over the next four hours, roofs began to cave in under the weight of the pumice…
Mycorrhizal fungi are the supply chains of the soil. With filaments thinner than hair, they shuttle vital nutrients to plants and tree roots. In return, the fungi receive carbon to grow their networks. In this way, 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide — one-third of fossil-fuel emissions worldwide — enter the soil each year….
Imagine you are video chatting with a distant friend who is eating lunch, and your pal’s sandwich looks delicious. What if you could ask your friend to dip a sensor into the meal, and give you a taste? Remote snacking has moved a bit closer to virtual reality. In a paper on Friday in the…
Every day, as Dr. Wendell Parkey enters his clinic in Seminole, a small city on the rural western edge of Texas, he announces his arrival to the staff with an anthem pumping loudly through speakers. As the song reaches a climax, he throws up an arm and strikes a pose in cowboy boots. “Y’all ready…
In a city where world-class masterpieces sit in marble temples that line the National Mall, the small museum devoted to the work of the Environmental Protection Agency, tucked away in a federal building near the White House, has not exactly inspired much fanfare. But as President Trump and Elon Musk slash and burn their way…
An obscure but influential program that gave detailed public health information to about half of the world’s nations will fold as a result of the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid. With funding from the United States Agency for International Development, the Demographic and Health Surveys were the only sources of information in many countries…
For generations, scientists looked to the East African savanna as the birthplace of our species. But recently some researchers have put forward a different history: Homo sapiens evolved across the entire continent over the past several hundred thousand years. If this Africa-wide theory were true, then early humans must have figured out how to live…
Shortly after taking office for the second time, President Trump began making deep cuts to agencies and programs that play critical roles in human health, slashing funding for medical research, halting global health aid and firing scores of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the campaign to downsize government, which has…
The Food and Drug Administration has taken a crucial step toward expanding access to the antipsychotic medication clozapine, the only drug approved for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, among the most devastating of mental illnesses. The agency announced on Monday that it was eliminating a requirement that patients submit blood tests before their prescriptions can be filled. Clozapine,…
Rum, a diamond-shaped island off the western coast of Scotland, is home to 40 people. Most of the island — 40 square miles of mountains, peatland and heath — is a national nature reserve, with residents mainly nestled around Kinloch Bay to the east. What the Isle of Rum lacks is artificial illumination. There are…
